Brits are at the pool earlier: let's finally make plans!

Saturday, February 27, 2021

Brits are at the pool earlier
Let's finally make plans!

From Horst von Buttlar

The British got the travel bug. Because their Prime Minister gives them what is missing in this country: a vaccination program in full swing and a perspective for the time after Corona. It is time for this to take place in this country.

You have to be British this summer. (Yes, I didn't think you'd write something like that either.) The British got the travel bug. The trigger was a speech by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in which he presented a four-step plan. His message: bit by bit, corona restrictions will be lifted by the end of June – if the infection situation allows it.

Great Britain may have had a painful zigzag course and is still badly affected by the pandemic, but with its vaccination campaign it has long outstripped Europe. Around 20 million or 30 percent of the British have already received a dose. And so something happened that we all long for: people are making plans again. They have a perspective to undertake something, they live for something – even if it is the Ballermann.

There was a real run on the booking portals. The low-cost airline Easyjet said that flight bookings had tripled compared to the previous week, and that holiday bookings had increased by 630 percent. Malaga, Alicante, Palma, Faro, Crete, all of these destinations were in demand. Tui also sent signs of life: The state-ventilated travel company counted an overnight increase in bookings of 500 percent. Who is still wondering what and how much of life before the pandemic is returning: people will definitely travel again. And the British will probably be the first at the pool with their towels this summer.

Maybe news like this is a wake-up call that governments should make more plans again – and not just hatch new rules for new lockdown extensions. After all: The EU is now working on a travel vaccination certificate, which will hopefully be available by the summer: "We call for work to continue on a common concept for vaccination certificates, and we will deal with this issue again," it said in the statement by the heads of state and government after their deliberations on Thursday. A statement that gives hope and at the same time a little worry: to deal with it again? Why postpone?

Vaccinated people get their basic rights back

Many countries are now working on national solutions, including Sweden and Denmark. Estonia has been developing a "smart yellow card" since October. Israel has shown it with its "Green Passport": Those who are vaccinated should not only be able to travel again – they should get back the good old life. He or she does not get any "privileges" back, only the suspended and restricted basic rights. I know I'm in a minority with this view, but I think that's perfectly fine. According to a survey by the "Zeit", 32 percent are in favor of vaccinated people receiving "privileges", 68 percent are against.

I do not think it is a particularly intelligent act of solidarity when millions of vaccinated people continue to barricade and crawl with the unprotected rest – and in their exhausted Corona-Biedermeier period think about which rules they can circumvent and how. My concern is not whether the rescued people also wear respiratory masks on the S-Bahn. Wouldn't it be more sensible and expedient if hundreds of thousands and soon millions were able to go to restaurants, concerts and cinemas again and spend money there before the companies finally run out of air between bridging allowance II and at some point V or VI?

And here we are back to the plans and the British and their summer: Our society is hungry for prospects. I know that sounds a little cheap and that we are currently dealing with new mutations, the third wave and the lockdown until Easter.

But at the same time we have to develop the ideas and the right products for our plans from summer onwards. Here there should be a show of strength and no thinking bans. And data protectionists should find out why we are restricting the freedom of travel, assembly and occupation, but behind many ideas to remedy these restrictions there is immediately a data protection officer with concerns.

There is a lack of digital concepts

The Corona-Warn-App warns mainly with its limited effectiveness and effectiveness. So if we want to travel and work again within Europe soon, that is, to live "European" life, there must be a Europe-wide exchange of data and databases, which so far only existed in pilot projects and between individual countries. National solutions are just as important, because you don't have to wait for a European certificate to attend a concert in Hamburg or a museum visit in Dessau. It is about, as Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Stephan Weil said, "to combine tests, vaccinations and hygiene concepts". (In the time before Corona one would have added: controlled by artificial intelligence.) "The point is to forge, think through and develop the solutions for the problems and challenges that we will have from summer, autumn and next Year will have. "

For "living with the pandemic", as it is so often called, we need digital concepts and networking for the months and years to come. They have to be as brave, intelligent and ambitious as the race in space and the moon landing. Only that they begin in the boring everyday life: When I check into a restaurant or hotel, I am either vaccinated or get tested beforehand. Both can be proven via an app – and why not reserve a test appointment 30 minutes in advance at Open Table next to the table? Or when you go to the cinema? (The ticket provider CTS Eventim is already organizing vaccination appointments in Schleswig-Holstein.)

Anyone who is afraid of their data is not forced to go to a restaurant. Especially since it is not about countless and comprehensive data, but only about specific: whether we are infected or not, are vaccinated or not and whether we can prove it. All of this is still better than not going to the cinema or evening in the restaurant, especially since we have already disclosed a multiple of data to various tech companies on the way there, searching the net and booking, including hectic cookie information clicking away. Perhaps the Corona warning app could be saved and expanded into a kind of corona wallet.

In essence, it is about forging, thinking through and developing the solutions to the problems and challenges that we will have from summer, autumn and in the coming year. Otherwise we will stumble into large and complex questions again and again while we are vaccinating, and we will wonder why we have not even clarified these questions three or six months in advance in lockdown.

Horst von Buttlar is editor-in-chief of "Capital". This text first appeared on Capital.de